Monday, August 25, 2008

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Having just finished Black Order by James Rollins, a fun Quantum-Nazis-in-the-Himalayans thrill ride, I got a bit interested in his main plot device, a purported secret Nazi superweapon called "Die Glocke" (The Bell). In the book, The Bell not only functions as a quantum weapon with great destruction capability, but also has some more practical side-effects, such as prolonging life, enhancing muscle strength, etc. Those superman Nazi fighters have to come from somewhere, after all.

So what's fact and what is fiction? No one knows, but much speculation is based on the fact that the alleged development lab was completely destroyed by the Nazis as the end of the war drew near, and all personnel murdered.

“(1) The Bell was reportedly a metallic object, approximately 9 feet in diameter and 12 - 15 feet tall. (2) It looked like a bell; hence, its codename to the Germans, die Glocke. (3) It was comprised of two counter-rotating cylinders, rotating a purplish, liquid-metallic-looking substance at high speeds that was code-named ‘Xerum 525’ by the Germans. [...] (7) All the scientists and witnesses who saw or worked on the Bell were allegedly murdered by the SS as the war neared its end. [...] (9) A strange Stonehenge-like structure was constructed by the Germans out of reinforced concrete near the facility where the Bell was located and tested. This structure might have been used to test extremely powerful propulsion devices.”

The "Halitosis bomb" and "Gay bomb" are informal names for two theoretical non-lethal chemical weapons, which a United States Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing.

In 1994 the Wright Laboratory in Ohio, a predecessor to today's United States Air Force Research Laboratory, produced a three-page proposal on a variety of possible nonlethal chemical weapons, which was later obtained - complete with marginal jottings and typos - by the Sunshine Project through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In both of the documents, the possibility was canvassed that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behavior". The documents described the aphrodisiac weapon as "distasteful but completely non-lethal". The "New Discoveries Needed" section of one of the documents implicitly acknowledges that no such chemicals are actually known. The reports also include many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in the combat area, and a chemical weapon that would give the enemy bad breath.